Social Media News Roundup: Twitter Removes Share Counts

Lisa Coghlan takes a look at social media updates from the last seven days, including changes to Twitter's share counts, developments on how we use emojis, and the introduction of holiday ads on Facebook and Instagram.

Twitter Removes Share Counts from Tweet Buttons

Twitter has now removed share counts from its tweet buttons – one of the ways that social marketers quantify the value of their work. Twitter first announced the change in October, with a view to simplify the platform, adding that the count was unofficial and not always as accurate as it could be.

After the removal of share counts, they disappeared from other sites which have social buttons with share totals. This has been received negatively by some social marketers. The hashtag “SaveOurShareCounts” appeared after the removal took place.

Third party providers of share buttons now do not have a free way of accessing sharing data. However, one developer has produced a free way of accessing the data, using Twitter’s search API. The free alternative is called OpenShareCount and is currently in beta. Buzzsumo has also created a Chrome plugin that will show sharing totals. This tool will also show share totals for Facebook, LinkedIn, Pinterest and Google+.

Social Beats Search For Top New Stories

According to analytics firm, Parse.ly, social is clearly beating search when it comes to top news stories. The firm claims that, for five out of every seven top news stories social referrals have the advantage. Parse.ly used seven major news stories and picked news stories that centred around one particular event, and found that search referrals only beat social for two of the chosen stories – the Ashley Madison hack and the Pacquiao and Mayweather fight. Parse.ly released a graphic showing the results of the report.

Zoomph Now Helps Track Emojis

Social analytics platform, Zoomph, will now help brands track emojis, helping social marketers to answer to specific emojis in posts about their company. The emoji tracking feature will offer up an emoji cloud, showing you which emojis have been used in posts about your brand, giving you a better indication of whether people are talking positively or negatively about your brand.

Facebook and Instagram Launch Ads Targeting Holiday Shoppers

Facebook and Instagram will now be specifically targeting Christmas shoppers with ads that enable brands to target people who are already engaging with holiday shopping. The targeting will be based on people’s current activity and their posts and interactions which contain holiday related keywords. This service is available on Facebook within the “Behaviours” section of the site, under “Seasonal and Events”.